Posted by
Dawnsblood on Thursday, November 23, 2006 5:34:35 AM
I have made a few posts regarding this gentleman and my belief that it is inadvisable to make him Intelligence chair. In the spirit of fairness,
here is the letter he wrote concerning his impeachment.
Because I know you and because many of you are mindful of my 14
years in Congress, and in order not to stoke a simmering fire which had
the potential to adversely affect Democrats in the ’06 election, I
elected not to participate in the “discussion” about whether I should
be appointed Chair of the HPSCI.
The noise and misleading, poorly informed, misinformed, and
sometimes venomous attacks on my integrity and character by pundits,
politicians, and editors screaming the word “impeachment” (ignoring a
Not Guilty verdict in a court of law) in a frenetic attempt to justify
denying me a position I have certainly earned and am completely
competent to perform requires now that I set the record straight.
That having been said, I will again quote Byron York's piece:
But as chairman of the subcommittee, Conyers continued, he examined the
evidence that Hastings conspired with a close friend, a man named
William Borders, to solicit money from defendants in return for
favorable treatment in Hastings’s court. And that evidence changed
Conyers’s mind. “I heard some evidence that forced me to reevaluate my
position, the evidence presented, not only in my subcommittee but over
here as a manager,” Conyers said. “I have heard this thing twice. And
what I have seen and heard and studied and listened to and reread and
argued with my staff counsel and back and forth has only matured my
conclusion that, measured by any standard, Judge Hastings’ guilt has
been established and Congress has an obligation to protect the
integrity of the judiciary.”
“There is an enormous amount of
evidence that makes no sense at all unless Judge Hastings conspired
with William Borders and lied at the trial,” Conyers concluded. “It is
the mass of evidence that makes the case, but it may be just one of the
undisputed facts that convinces you that Judge Hastings is not to be
believed on this and many, many other facts made both in and outside of
this legal process.”
“Justice and the integrity of our
government depend on the importance of these impeachment proceedings,
and they argue that the judge should be removed from the bench.”
If hyper-partisan Rep Conyers was that sure, I think I am on firm ground in thinking that Rep Hastings escaped justice in court, but caught the tail end of it in Congress. Thanks Allahpundit.